October 4, 2012 12:15 pm

One of the first moves was as predictable as cold weather at Safeco Field in April. The Mariners will not retain hitting coach Chris Chambliss after another dismal offensive season.

The rest of Seattle’s coaching staff will return next season.

The Mariners finished last in baseball this season in batting average (.234), on-base percentage (.296), slugging percentage (.369) and on-base plus slugging (.665). They were also last in baseball in most major offensive categories in 2011 as well.

Chambliss was Seattle’s hitting coach the past two seasons. The 63-year-old previously was the hitting coach for the New York Yankees and Mets, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

Also, the team announced that Dustin Ackley (ankle) and Brendan Ryan (elbow) underwent arthroscopic surgeries on Thursday.

Ackley had a bone spur removed from his left ankle, and Ryan had a bone spur removed from his right elbow. Both are expected to be completely healthy for spring training.

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About

Bob Dutton joins The News Tribune after more than 25 years at the Kansas City Star, including the last 13 covering baseball and the Royals. He was the president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America in 2008 and serves on the committee that nominates players to the Hall of Fame.

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SOS. Fire the hitting coach. This is so ridiculous. Fire LINCOLN AND CHUCKLES. Stop finding a scapegoat down the line. They do this every freaking year. FIRE Howard the Duck and Chuckles the Clown. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. Bring in a baseball executive who can run a team. Why in the world can the Senators win 90+ games this year after being so woefully atrocious and at the same point in the rebuilding process as the M’s? Don’t tell me it was Strasberg and Harper, because Stras was out for an entire year and a half of another, and Harper has been good, but the M’s seemed to think they were getting just as much in Ackley. The Nats have 5 solid starters and an offense that can hit the ball. Why can’t the M’s develop a team in that time period? This is unacceptable and it’s time to stop having the buck stop at low-level coaches. Take it to the top and get rid of the buffoons.

Whew! So glad that the hitting coach was fired (again). Now I can look forward to the Mariners instantly reversing course and becoming an offensive powerhouse in 2013. C’mon, man. I have no idea if Chambliss was a capable hitting coach or not…but overall talent (and youth) have more to do with the offensive failings than the hitting coach.

If Z and Wedge were convinced enough to hire him, than (in the absence of a major indiscretion on Chambliss’ part) they should have had the courage to stay the course and retain him….as Z and Wedge are asking the public to do regarding their own futures in Seattle.

Not sold on this move. I think bringing in the fences matters much more than this move. Confidence and player development will determine the hitting in 2013, assuming they don’t add anything major.

Dumb and Dumber are here until Grandpa Nintendo sells the team. Hopefully, he does that to a local buyer or someone committed to keep them in Seattle. I do think they are finally going in the right direction. Still a ways to go. Time for at least SOME optimism. Don’t just poo poo everything they do. There usually are plenty of moves to complain about without looking for them.

Wabubba, they don’t have to be an offensive juggernaut to win. They probably just need to be average, which would be a tremendous leap forward. Oakland won the AL West with a .238 average, .310 OBP, and .404 slugging. 28th, 24th, and 15th respectively in MLB.

I swear Howard and Chuck are going through a decade long mid-life crisis with the decisions they have made. I just wish they would have bought Harley’s and rode off leaving the team to a couple of people who know what they are doing.

bbnate420. Ryan is traveling. I’m sure he’ll be here to write something when there is something worth writing. The M’s are doing their annual “fire a low level employee to further cover up the fact that upper level employees are incompetent”. Then they hope that the World Series will make people forget how crummy the M’s did this season, because baseball will leave them with a good feeling, and then M’s ticket agents will start calling everybody the day after Thanksgiving pushing for renewals.

Well… the boycott is on. The M’s stepped in it by trying to stop the Sonics arena plan. Those who support the Sonics and hockey and are also M’s ticket holders aren’t buying tickets next year. The message will be sent loud and clear. This will ultimately be Howard and Chuck’s undoing. Too bad it isn’t their abysmal record on the field building a team, but it will be a miscalculation in marketing strategy that ultimately will cost them their “yes men” careers.

I’m all for it SharkHawk, but I’m not sure if it does a lot of good unless Grandpa Nintendo goes with them. Hopefully, Paul Allen or Hansen are willing to buy the M’s as well. I didn’t spend a dime on the M’s this year. People like timeout don’t think that withholding your money from the team sends a message. He thinks that whining on blogs will make the difference I guess. If that were the case, Chuckles and Schmuckles would’ve been gone long ago. Ichiro trade was a good step, although Ichiro bailed those morons out with the request. Grandpa Nintendo never would’ve signed off without Ichiro’s consent. Gave me more respect for Ichiro. Bringing in the fences is another good step. Tossing Olivo and Bilbo Baggins on the trash heap would give me some more hope. I do think this team is on the right track as far as developing talent. Not sure if they’ll ever be able to be consistent contenders with current ownership/upper management. I actually have some hope now though.

But the trash-heap throwing of Bilbo and Olivo just ignores the fact really that it wasn’t Chambliss who failed to get those two to produce. The fact is that Uncle Fester went out and got them and put them in as centerpieces for this team to rely on (compare that to how the Nats built their roster), and then Chuckles and Howie signed off on both acquisitions, as if those guys were going to lead this team somewhere, or were somehow integral to a rebuilding project. They are not good hitters, and they are not young guys that you build a team around. So where exactly do they fit? They fit as desperation moves by a team that is woefully incapable of compiling a roster that makes any sense whatsoever. Yet it is Chris Chambliss who feels the wrath and gets the axe.

It’s too sad to be funny, but it is interesting how Chambliss has been a coach before and when surrounded by good talents he coached on a team in the playoffs. How many teams has Jackie Z. brought to the playoffs? How many world series has Howard Lincoln won?

I’ll never forget the day Lincoln said (I’m paraphrasing) that the fans hated him a week ago, but now that he went out and signed Beltre and Sexson he’s a hero and everybody loves him. This was BEFORE either guy had even played a season. I was embarrassed for the guy that he knew so little about the sport that he thought he’d just built a contender. Sexson had always been overrated, was coming off of a major injury and was on the downhill side of his career. Beltre was pretty unknown due to the fact that Safeco isn’t built for him (he’s not a lefty who puts loft on the ball) and he had a mysteriously amazing contract year. Beltre turned out pretty decent, but has always been better everywhere else due to the poor design of Safeco, but here Howard was telling everybody what a genius he was before a game was played.

He then had a nice set of feature stories set up on himself with the local media where he said his taking over day-to-day operations made perfect sense since he grew up enjoying baseball a great deal. WHAT?!

I grew up enjoying playing Nintendo games. Does that mean I’m qualified to take over Howard’s old position as the head man at Nintendo? Let’s not forget that Howard was basically told to go find something else to do because he nearly bankrupted Nintendo. Now he’s been given a lifetime job by the Mariners. It’s embarrassing. It isn’t so much “Grandpa Nintendo” as it was Howard’s leveraging the daily running and essentially the ownership of the team out of Nintendo in exchange for his retirement from his lifetime position as the “man” at Nintendo. What happened since he left Nintendo and relinquished control of all major decisions? Oh… just the Wii and billions of new dollars in revenue that never would have happened under Mr. Gamecube/Super Nintendo who had the company on the brink of complete financial collapse (literally). It appears he’ll have to do the same to the Mariners in order for him to be served with his walking papers for the last time. He’s like Bob Whitsitt and has completely ingrained himself so deeply into the organization that they can’t get him out even if they wanted to. He’s a termite.

The termite analogy is pretty funny. The only thing I absolutely blame Grandpa Nintendo for is the refusal to part with Ichiro without Ichiro’s doing because it would make him look bad in Japan.

As far as “Uncle Fester”, I think he’s far from being the problem that Chuckles and Schmuckles, aka The Termite, are for the organization. He has made some good moves and some bad moves. He has done a good job of assembling prospects. I don’t think he saw Olivo as a building piece, just a stop-gap. He didn’t invest major money in him. Bilbo was just a horrid mistake. It will be interesting to see what they do this off-season. They should keep Iwakuma and Vargas. There aren’t any major free agent hitters that make any sense for them to me except possibly David Wright. They probably need a vet min catcher to round out the catching until Zunino is ready.

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